Essentialism in Biology: Contributions to Teaching

Essentialism can be characterized as the doctrine that at least some objects in the world have at least some essential properties. In the mid-twentieth century, several philosophers developed a narrative suggesting that Darwinian theory fundamentally challenged essentialism in biology by demonstrating its incompatibility with Darwinian principles. Nowadays, being accused of essentialism is seen as being anti-scientific, anti-Darwinist, racist, among other things. However, at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century, other philosophers have proposed that essentialism plays a role in actual biology. This view is understood not in a strict sense, but with variations in the assumptions that are considered valid and in the diverse forms of essentialism that can exist. The classifications made from taxonomy, systematics, genetics, or evolutionary biology would fulfill some of the assumptions of essentialism but not others. As a teacher, adopting one narrative over the other regarding the legitimacy of essentialism in biology will significantly influence how a range of content is taught in higher education. In this paper, we will delve deeper into these narratives and propose metacognitive vigilance as a possible approach to address essentialism in the classroom. This would allow, among other things, questioning the meaning of the classifications that biologists elaborate when investigating topics such as genetic ancestry or the genetic structure of the human population. Distinguishing which of the assumptions of essentialism are fulfilled in each case would help our students deepen their understanding of the scientific models underlying these topics, while reflecting on the ways in which this knowledge is constructed.